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Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

cnn.com

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Re: Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

#111

Post by nullocator »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #98
jdlshore wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz says otherwise. If Iran can successfully blockade the Strait in the face of the full military might of the US, certainly they can cut an undersea cable.

What prevents a consortium of network operators using similar hostage politics on Iran? What prevents them from pooling together the funds for 2 decades of relentless cyberattacks on Iran, unless twice the same fee is payed in reverse to compensate for just the threat ? (currently unaffected network operators have an incentive to chip in, lest political factions local to or neighboring their cables start imitating Ir…

> What prevents them from pooling together the funds for 2 decades of relentless cyberattacks on Iran, unless twice the same fee is payed in reverse to compensate for just the threat?

I thought it was clear to everyone that this is _exactly_ what the U.S. and Israel have been doing to Iran for literally 20+ years [0] [1]. In addition to economic warfare, other types of espionage, and acts of terrorism - e.g. blowing up a bunch of people's mobile devices and pagers (in before someone accuse the children and civilians harmed in the attack of being terrorists themselves).

Bad actors have been extracting all kinds of concessions and actions out of Iran for many decades now under all kinds of threats, tactics, and attacks.

This war was literally started by the U.S. and Israel blowing up peace talks in Iran.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare_and_Iran

Re: Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

#112

Post by [deleted] »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #98
jdlshore wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz says otherwise. If Iran can successfully blockade the Strait in the face of the full military might of the US, certainly they can cut an undersea cable.

What prevents a consortium of network operators using similar hostage politics on Iran? What prevents them from pooling together the funds for 2 decades of relentless cyberattacks on Iran, unless twice the same fee is payed in reverse to compensate for just the threat ? (currently unaffected network operators have an incentive to chip in, lest political factions local to or neighboring their cables start imitating Ir…

[deleted]

Re: Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

#113

Post by ibejoeb »

everdrive wrote: post #107
ibejoeb wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No snark: with what? Their navy?

You destroy cables by trawling the ocean floor. I'm not sure how many trawlers were targeted, but perhaps they truly have no capability to carry out their threat.

Yup. Or submersibles or underwater demo crews. These things are not going to go unnoticed. That's a suicide mission, if the US even cares enough to intervene. I don't think those cables are particularly important. I mean, I guess Iranians are going to have to put up with extra latency...oh.

Seriously, though, other regional powers that have something on the line will have to decide whether this is worth action.

Re: Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

#114

Post by Ajedi32 »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #103
Ajedi32 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chain of events probably started something like 2000 years ago depending on how you count it. The fact remains that threatening the ships of peaceful commercial traffic by uninvolved nations is entirely Iran's doing.

As they say, all's fair in love and war. Trump was certainly warned that this would be Iran's response, and started bombing anyway. Trying to absolve the US administration of this is just propaganda.

Trying to absolve the US administration of Iran's actions? Again, my whole point here is that the US is not the one blocking the strait. The US is not responsible for the actions of an enemy nation, predictable or not.

Re: Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

#115

Post by nullocator »

ibejoeb wrote: post #106
everdrive wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What makes Iran believe unilateral fees on subsea internet cables would be paid? Presumably because they will attempt to destroy them if the fees are not paid.

No snark: with what? Their navy?

No snark: Why not? Unless you're saying that it doesn't exist or has been destroyed because the orange man or one of the alcoholics on the tiktok/foxnews proclaimed it to be true hundreds of times over the last two months?

Re: Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

#116

Post by ibejoeb »

nullocator wrote: post #115
ibejoeb wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No snark: with what? Their navy?

No snark: Why not? Unless you're saying that it doesn't exist or has been destroyed because the orange man or one of the alcoholics on the tiktok/foxnews proclaimed it to be true hundreds of times over the last two months?

Yes, I've been led to believe that Iran's navy has taken heavy losses, but I'm asking. Does Iran have this capability?

Re: Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

#117

Post by [deleted] »

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #60

This is just so incredibly embarrassing. We're now negotiating to end a war with a country we have claimed to have defeated like 500 times now, over terms that will not even just return the region to the pre-war status quo, but (most likely) giving them more power than they had when the first bombs were dropped. Not to mention shattering the illusion that the US can somehow protect the gulf states, along with most of…

[deleted]

Re: Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

#118

Post by Ajedi32 »

watwut wrote: post #110
Ajedi32 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument goes that, given the general disposition of Iran towards the US, its allies, and basically anyone who's not a Shiite Muslim, it wasn't a choice between war with Iran or no war with Iran. It was a choice between war with Iran now, or war with a stronger, possibly nuclear-armed Iran at some unspecified point in the future. Personally I disagree war was inevitable; time can change a lot of things and it doe…

Regularly scheduled reminder that if nuclear was the worry, Iran was actually abiding to existing agreements. In the USA Iran history, USA is consistent agressor and agreements breaker. There was no imminent threat and per international law, that war is illegal. And even worst, situation where Iran does not have those anti-nuclear agreements was created by the very same people who started the war. And even worst, the…

Regularly shooting ballistic missiles at allied nations isn't an imminent threat?

And I don't see how "existing agreements" make a difference if those existing agreements allow them to build nukes.

If Iran stopped building nukes and stopped threatening their neighbors the US would have no reason to intervene. (Other the usual reason of Iran's human rights abuses of course, but historically the US generally lets those slide as long as the country isn't threatening to impose those abuses on its neighbors.)

Re: Iran will impose fees on subsea internet cables in Strait of Hormuz

#120

Post by nullocator »

ibejoeb wrote: post #116
nullocator wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No snark: Why not? Unless you're saying that it doesn't exist or has been destroyed because the orange man or one of the alcoholics on the tiktok/foxnews proclaimed it to be true hundreds of times over the last two months?

Yes, I've been led to believe that Iran's navy has taken heavy losses, but I'm asking. Does Iran have this capability?

Until they exercise it I suspect we can't truly know. They have demonstrated that have reliable drone manufacturing and ballistic capabilities. Whether those include submersibles or munitions that can strike submerged targets is unclear.

In terms of raw capabilities and ability to actually damage these cables as an entity. Yes they have them today, they don't need special naval craft for such an endeavor, you can drag a hook behind any vessel large enough for the conditions and damage the cables repeatedly. This has been happening in other parts of the globe for some time, with Russia using cargo ships, I believe. Other parties could try and prevent this, possibly with some success but it would either involve sinking those vessels at a distance (hope they're right about what those vessels are doing), or putting your own assets in danger of missile or drone strikes.

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